Ghost of Mind Episode One (12 page)

The Old Ones had possessed weapons that could
wipe out whole planets in seconds.

Alice knew her rules off by heart, and yet
here she was attempting to recharge Old Tech with no idea what it
was.

Though she doubted the statue on the other
side of the room was capable of tearing through Orion Minor in the
blink of an eye, she was not prepared to give it more energy than
it would require to turn on. Just enough for it to make some noise,
maybe move around a bit, but nothing more.

Just a distraction, that was all she
needed.

But as Alice sent her energy out, that
white-blue line flickering through the floor on its way to find a
target, she could not have appreciated what would happen next.

Chapter 18

John Doe

She'd collapsed. He'd seen the impediment
field try to hold her in place, he'd seen it grow in intensity,
smelt it as it had started to burn her flesh.

His stomach had given such a kick in that
second that he had twitched forward, his boots squeaking against
the floor.

Now he was on his knees beside her. And yes,
he was pulling rank. He didn't care if it started a diplomatic
firestorm; John was done seeing the Chief turn a blind eye to this
woman's pain.

‘
Computer, override access, authorization
Commander John Doe. Tell me now her life signs. Is she—’ he
began.

But John never got to finish his
sentence.

Because something screamed.

From the other side of the room, right by the
service elevators, something stretched up, opened its enormous
mouth, and let out a sound half way between a bellow and the noise
of metal cracking under weight.

John ducked to the side, bringing up his
helmet in a second, calling the Pegasus in the next.

Eyes locked on the thing by the elevators,
his heart plunged through his chest and right out of the
building.

Old Tech.

Holy freaking hell.

He'd seen it on the way in. But of course
he'd hardly paid any attention. He'd seen statues like that on
numerous planets throughout the universe. It was exceedingly common
to have a throwback to the Old Ones sitting around your security
compound or propped up on your senator's desk. The stuff didn't
work, of course; the devices that had any residual charge were
safeguarded by the Union. But the other stuff considered too common
and too sucked dry to ever be worth much, was kept as nothing more
than trophies. By the rich and powerful of course - if some slum
dweller got their hands on a device, they would find it quickly
confiscated. But Central Security on Orion Minor was probably
considered secure enough to have a honking great Old Tech device
sitting next to the elevators.

John's eyes were plastered open, his jaw
slack. He couldn't have closed it if he'd tried.

The device took a step forward. No, that
wasn't entirely right. First it unwound itself. Before it had
suddenly managed to turn itself on, it had been a squat-looking box
no more than two meters across and one meter high. It had a dark
blue and white metallic finish, and, to be honest, it was an
example of Old Tech John had seen numerous times. They were dotted
all over the place.

It really hadn't deserved a second glance.
Well now it had John's second glance, in fact it had all of his
pressed attention as the thing took another step forward.

In seconds it had unwound itself from the
box, drawing up into a robot a good ten meters tall. Its legs and
chest and arms and head were not smooth and cylindrical, mimicking
the body of a soft-flesh alien like the security bots behind John.
No, this thing was jagged; the metal stuck out at angles, all
different colors and shapes. Spikes and shards of it shifted over
the surface of the robot, darting this way and that, swimming over
its chest and forearms as they eventually slammed into place.

It was like watching a robot growing. In
fact, it was exactly like watching a robot growing; because as John
stared on, mouth slack and dry, that was precisely what was
occurring.

The thing did not have eyes, then the next
second two eye holes bored right into its head and two pin pricks
of light no bigger than his thumbs pierced into place. Shards of
metal still shifted around all over its torso and limbs as they
apparently raced to find their places on the nascent device.

As the thing pulled itself up to its full
height, it gave another scream. Plunging its head forward, its
mouth opening, more shards of metal moving around and through it,
it let out the most harrowing of calls John had ever heard. It
grated and roared and echoed through the room.

‘
Oh my god,’ John heard Alice say from
beside him.

He'd already jumped up to his feet. But in
that second he shifted his gaze to her.

She was trying to pick herself up from the
ground, but the impediment field was still strong around her. He
could see it frantically crackling over her skin, see it as it
appeared to push her down, trying to keep her locked in place.

John turned back to the giant robot in time
to see it take one enormous step, one of its metallic legs punching
through a consol. It burst into sparks, electricity playing up the
leg of the robot, but not once did it shift back or jostle from the
discharge. It just leaned down, opened that gaping mouth, and let
out another scream.

Everyone in the room, from the criminals to
the security officers to John, seemed frozen on the spot.

Something that had been a statue for probably
more than 100,000 years had suddenly come back to life. No warning.
Nothing.

This was not meant to be possible.

John finally got hold of his jaw, locking it
closed. Who cared if it was possible? It was happening.

Reaching behind him, John grabbed the gun
that had been synthesized when his armor had been manufactured
right onto him up on the Pegasus. He pulled it off in a quick but
smooth movement, thumbing the switch that told the plasma core to
build up a devastating charge.

He did not bother to tell the robot to stop,
he just dodged to the side, brought his gun up, and shot right at
the main security console to his left.

John had not suddenly lost his mind. Upon
seeing the giant robot come to life he hadn't automatically decided
it was a great time to start trashing the building.

He knew that the quickest way to get the
computer to kick into defensive mode was to assault the main
bank.

As soon as the shot from his gun, hot and
white, rammed into the console, blistering the front panel, but not
pushing through the hardware underneath, the lights cut to half
illumination.

As they did, security fields popped up around
all the systems in the room, from the bio scanner to the computer
core, to the processing desk.

‘
Get everyone in the fields,’ John
screamed, voice booming out with the assistance of his
armor.

As he finished, the robot turned in his
direction, leaned down again and let out another ferocious scream.
It saw the blood drain from John's face, his fingers stiffen and
crinkle, and his heart skip a beat.

It did not stop him however from turning on
his foot so fast that his boot might as well have caused the floor
to catch fire. He dropped to his knee and waved his arm over the
woman. She was still desperately trying to get onto her feet. Her
hands losing purchase, her legs and knees kicking out, no matter
how hard she tried to stand, the impediment field pinned her down
with all the force it could muster.

As John waved his hand over her, he tried to
access the ICN, tried to override the field.

Though he had made a call to the Pegasus as
soon as the robot had come to life, he had not said anything and
neither had they. They were his team and they were professionals.
The second he established connection, they would have picked up the
visual field of his armor, played it back through the holo emitters
on the bridge, and then they would have been smart enough to
realize now was not the time to interrupt their commander.
Hopefully they would be making all the right calls, warning the
authorities, and wracking their brilliant brains for a way to shut
down the Old Tech robot before it could trash the entire Block.

But right now John had to ensure the safety
of everyone else in the room. As his hand still hovered above the
woman, he turned to his left, darting his gaze around the room.
Fortunately people were doing what he'd said; the assembled
security officers and bots were shoeing everyone else behind the
enormous and very powerful force fields that were designed to
protect Central Security primary systems. They were probably the
most advanced technology on the planet this side of the ICN. The
Union, after all, always ensured to keep security as a top
priority; food, housing, education, and all of those other things
that made life livable were luxuries it did not waste on backwater
planets.

Fortunately the security fields locking down
the systems were smart enough to recognize the life signs of the
officers, and the officers could shepherd the criminals and whatnot
unlucky enough to be in the room right now behind the fields.

Which just left John and the woman. The
security field around the bio scanner did not reach her. It was a
tantalizing centimeter to her left.

He had to shut down the impediment field and
haul her through it before that robot started to get violent. And
one look at those pin prick eyes and the metal constantly shifting
over its body, changing place and changing shape, told John this
situation could only end in one way.

‘
Come on,’ he growled, shifting his hand,
spreading the fingers wide, and plunging his concentration into the
task. There was nothing wrong with his neural link; he had full
access to the ICN, and his authorization codes were more than
sufficient to deactivate the field, and yet he couldn't.

His armor kept registering some kind of
feedback, and it was interfering with his link so much that his
request wasn't getting through.

‘
Commander, leave her,’ the Chief snapped.
He was already safely behind the bio scanner force field, his
deputies and officers crammed in with him. He waved a spiked-hand
John's way.

John was not going to leave her. He turned on
his foot, not moving his hand as it locked in place about 10
centimeters above her right shoulder. She kept on bucking up and
down, scampering, trying to gain enough purchase to push herself
up. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to push
past the impediment field.

‘
Come on,’ John half-screamed, his voice a
tight croak.

He watched the robot, it twisted its head in
all directions, those electronic eyes focusing in on the various
security fields that had slammed up around critical systems. His
eyes narrowed in on the people and robots crammed behind them, and
John could see metallic circles shift underneath the red light of
its gaze, focusing in just like a human pupil would.

When it had popped out of its box, the robot
had seemed instinctual and full of rage. But as the seconds passed,
something far worse was happening. Angry and big John could deal
with. But as he watched the robot, intelligence seemed to be
growing behind its laser-like vision.

Sweat collecting above his top lip,
shoulders tensing and locking, John kept his gaze focused on the
robot as his hand hovered over the woman. ‘Come on,’ he screamed
again.

For a second the robot stared right at John.
Then one of its enormous metallic nostrils, that was little more
than a slit, shifted up in a snap. Once again small metal shards
shifted in and out over its face and nose, imbedding themselves
with a metallic clang only to shift around again a second
later.

The vision of it sniffing the air reached in
and grabbed at John's hind brain. It was such an animalistic thing
to do.

It sniffed the air again, then its electronic
eyes darted across the room. They finally settled on the ground. It
bent right down, its enormous body twitching in half, in a furious,
incredibly fast snap. It plunged a hand right into the ground, the
floor buckling and snapping around it.

It was then that John noticed the faint
white-blue line.

The robot locked eyes on it. Its head snapped
up as it appeared to follow the line.

Then it moved.

Faster than John could have imagined.

Right at him.

John had time to let off one round. Right at
the thing’s chest. It landed, but that was it. It did not stop it,
it did not harm it. It did nothing. The blast was simply absorbed
into the thing's massive chest. Bits of metal sloughed off, flew
out, but then changed direction and landed against its arms and
face, sinking into them, shifting back down, then closing up the
hole in the chest. It took less than half a second.

Then the robot reached him, it brought one of
its arms around and swatted at John.

Just in time he rolled to the side, but his
gun was not so lucky. As the robot's arm swept past John's body,
his gun lurched from his grip and slammed right into it. It must
have had some kind of fantastic magnetic pull, and within seconds
the gun began to break up and become absorbed into the body of the
robot.

As John rolled away, he had to lock his boots
onto the ground, forming a mag lock. Now the robot was closer, it
felt as if John would be sucked off his feet and pulled towards it.
The force was incredible.

But it was not enough to distract John from
what happened next.

The robot reached down to the woman, locked
one of its shifting hands around her neck and lifted her off the
floor.

As it did the impediment field exploded,
sending ripples of energy washing over the woman and crackling up
the robot's arm. Once again it did not seem to affect the thing at
all.